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Seen together as a collective, the guys from Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys" and Seth Gordon's "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", are like the two outsider cliques in Judd Apatow's "Freaks and Geeks". Freaks win, hands down; at least their labour of love led to fame and fortune, while the geeks will just have to make do with this absolutely mesmerizing doc about being a beautiful loser(the film uses Leonard Cohen's Seen together as a collective, the guys from Stacy Peralta's "Dogtown and Z-Boys" and Seth Gordon's "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", are like the two outsider cliques in Judd Apatow's "Freaks and Geeks". Freaks win, hands down; at least their labour of love led to fame and fortune, while the geeks will just have to make do with this absolutely mesmerizing doc about being a beautiful loser(the film uses Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows"; the Canadian singer/songwriter wrote a novel called "Beautiful Losers"). Hot-sauce impresario Billy Mitchell(or what I like to call him, evil Kenny Loggins) is the sort of guy who relates with the evil sensei from "The Karate Kid", you know, the guy who tells his pupil to "sweep the leg", Danny's leg, Ralph Macchio's leg, at the climactic karate tournament(the movie uses the immortal "You're the Best" to spectacular effect). Why nice-guy Steve Wiebe feels the need to measure up to this megalomaniac is beyond comprehension. Even worse is Wiebe's need for validation by the corrupt people who run Twin Galaxies, a monolithic organization with a rulebook that's fluid just like the NCAA's(these jackasses stripped the University of Hawaii's men's volleyball of its title in 2002). When official Walter Day mispronounces Wie-be's name like a monosyllabic cognomen, we get the old coot's gyst; this gamer from the Northwest is a "dweeb". You really feel for Steve's wife, "the first-lady of Donkey Kong", who is the ultimate armchair quarterback's wife. If Steve ever buys a Frogger coin-op, she should file for divorce. "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" does for the eighties what "Dogtown and the Z-Boys" did for the seventies, the soundtrack and cultural signifiers from both films make you want to relive the decade of your childhood. "You're the best!/around!/nothing's ever gonna keep you down...…Expand

The King of Kong is an excellent documentary. It portrays an engaging story and the director should be praised for how well the audience is positioned during the movie. Many great scenes, and wholly recommended.

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AlecE.Mar 14, 2008

well made documentary. you really feel yourself rooting for the under dog. shows how serious even the most absurd interests are to those unfortunately involved.